from ordained ministry on charges of abandoning the communion of the church. Despite Duncan's removal, diocesan leadership went ahead on October 4, 2008 with the necessary second vote required to amend the diocesan constitution and canons. At that convention, 119 of 191 lay deputies and 121 of 160 clergy deputies voted on the second reading of constitutional changes intended to facilitate withdrawal from the Episcopal Church. In additional votes, canonical changes were approved that were intended to move the diocese into the Province of the Southern Cone. This is similar to what happened in the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin in 2007. Reorganization One member of the diocese's Standing Committee, the ecclesiastical authority in the absence of a bishop, remained in the Episcopal Church. That member, the Rev. James Simons, appointed two additional members to the Standing Committee and informed Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori of the situation. On October 9, 2008, Jefferts Schori acknowledged the reorganized Standing Committee as the legitimate ecclesiastical authority of the Diocese of Pittsburgh. The Rt. Rev. David Jones, a suffragan bishop of the Diocese of Virginia, began serving as a consulting bishop on October 23 to assist the diocese in its rebuilding efforts. A special meeting of the diocesan convention was held on December 13. Twenty-seven congregations actively participated in the convention. The convention voted unanimously that the recent canonical changes were null and void and affirmed the diocese's communion in the Episcopal Church. The Rt. Rev. Robert Hodges Johnson, the retired Bishop of Western North Carolina, accepted the call to serve as assisting bishop and to lead the diocese, for the near term. At the October 2009 convention, the Episcopal Diocese approved the call of the Rt. Rev. Kenneth Price, Bishop Suffragan of Southern Ohio as provisional bishop. Calvary Episcopal Church had returned to court in December 2006 asking for enforcement of the stipulation paragraph guaranteeing that diocesan property would remain with a diocese in the Episcopal Church. Following the 2008 diocesan convention, the Episcopal Diocese and the Episcopal Church joined in that legal action. On October 5, 2009, the Court of Common Pleas ruled that the diocese in communion with the Episcopal Church is the legal successor, and on October 29, the rival diocese announced it had changed its name to the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh. In October 2009, the Commonwealth Court ruled that all diocesan property belonged to the Episcopal Diocese